How to Exfoliate Your Skin: A Guide

what's up everyone we're back dr maxfield dr shaw and today we're going to be talking about how to exfoliate like a boss we're going to talk about how to go through the mechanical exfoliants how to go through the chemical exfoliants and all the details about when and why to use them so these are our tips on how to exfoliate this is one of the main things i see people making mistakes they're either exfoliating too often they're not using the right exfoliants and that can actually very much disrupt the skin barrier so our skin barrier is like a blessing it's like it protects us from allergens it protects us from irritation it keeps bacteria from getting into our skin it keeps water from getting out of our skin and so you should be doing everything in your power to protect your skin barrier now exfoliants disrupt the skin barrier but they have some benefits by disrupting that skin barrier so we're going to be talking about how to use an exfoliant so that you can see the best results from that exfoliant without disrupting your skin barrier or causing too much irritation so here we go here we go so the first thing about exfoliants why do you even want to exfoliate right this is so highly individualized and this is something we always stress be deliberate about what you're doing and why you're doing it i mean the person who's exfoliating their teens is not going to be doing it for the same reasons as a person who's in their 20s and it's not going to be the same reason for the person who is in their 50s 60s and on all right so why do you even want to exfoliate well first up it's going to improve your skin texture so texture meaning little bumps that are on the skin sometimes you just kind of notice when the light hits you that your skin doesn't have an even texture or even just that dullness that's on the skin that's all due to skin texture skin texture also contributes to your pores so one reason is just to improve your skin texture another reason is to improve disc pigmentation help with the hyperpigmentation even out the tone this can help with things like melasma or any other cause of post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation right so those dark spots on your skin that you get maybe after acne it can help with this as well also if you use the right exfoliant it can help with acne so it's great at getting rid of acne because acne is often caused by little skin cells that are plugging your pores and so if you exfoliate it gets rid of those little skin cells and another thing and we went back and forth on this but is actually maybe collagen growth with long-term use can actually help with fine wrinkles collagen we know our deeper peels that we use in the office and some doctors even do it in the operating room just tremendously help with collagen growth and wrinkles like dramatically but the over-the-counter ones might have some benefit with that as well so it has anti-aging benefits by getting rid of those fine lines and wrinkles so we're talking about something that improves texture improves skin tone and hyperpigmentation may help with acne if you use the right one and also has anti-aging benefits so of course this sounds great right so let's talk about how do these even work like what is the mechanism of these acids so there's two main groups of exfoliants there's chemical exfoliants and then there's physical exfoliants physical exfoliants which i hate and you guys know because i did that whole debunking thing on the same eye scrub where i show that has really sharp particles that just tear your face up and these are the type of scrubs i used when i had acne as a kid because i go and i get that clean and clear and i just try to scrub my acne off and it just doesn't work like that so i just feel like physical exploits are just way too harsh for the face for the body though for the body they probably have more of a role for things like keratosis pilaris you know we probably see more of a benefit from that the facial skin is just so much more sensitive and you know when you over stimulate it over aggravate it you can cause a lot more inflammation and irritation and the body can just tolerate better and it's also just more practical to be using a physical exfoliant on the body when you're taking a shower versus using a chemical exfoliant which would be just kind of difficult to apply to such a large area and also probably not that cost effective so you know i prefer physical exfoliants for the body and great for keratosis polaris we'll link the video above that we did about keratosis pilaris are those like strawberry little bumps that you get on the skin on the legs and on the backs of the arm so physical exfoliants are really great for that so save your physical exfoliants for the body and use your chemical exfoliants for the face and there's also something called enzyme exfoliants but they're not used as frequently things like pineapple or bromelain are considered to be enzyme exfoliants but they're just not used that often in skincare so we'll talk about that in a future video so chemical exfoliants which i love and i personally use so chemical exfoliants especially glycolic acid which has been the best studied acid overall breaks up those little bonds that's in between those cells that keep your skin cells sticking together and by doing that at that top layer of the skin it helps to turn those skin cells over bringing in new healthy cells from the bottom and they also send little signals down into the deeper layers of the skin that have effect on the dermis by increasing hyaluronic acid production and also increasing collagen production so they have a lot of different benefits and we've studied them and then we've proven that over many many years so there's really three major groups there are more than that we'll just talk about three main ones that's alpha hydroxy acids beta hydroxy acids and the polyhydroxy acids right and they all kind of have different roles they have all different chemical structures but if you choose the right exfoliant for your skin issues that's where you're going to see the biggest benefit with chemical exfoliants so our next thing is how do you choose the right chemical exfoliant for you right and so we're going to break this down based off of skin type because i feel like that's the easiest way to talk about these and he's laughing because he's actually the one who loves to talk about this way it's his baby i make up these like you know like little rules in my mind of like how to structure how skincare works and so this is just like one of the things i structure for acids because i think it's actually one of the most confusing topics absolutely totally agree with you there so if you have normal or combination skin glycolic acid is pretty much the basic one to start with glycolic acid is that super well-rounded acid it's going to be great for so many of the different problems that we've already mentioned it has so many functions and it's been studied probably the most extensively of all this maybe salicylic acid equally but it has extensive studies on it but it's the smallest particle alpha hydroxy acid which means it's going to penetrate deepest in the skin and cause the most irritation and inflammation of the group but if you have normal or combination skin you're going to tolerate this pretty well and you're going to see all those benefits so one of my favorite glycolic acid exfoliants and the reason i'm laughing is because i was about to butcher the name of this is the crave beauty kayla liao hallelujah okay i'm sorry i'm sorry leah i don't know how to say it okay i'm sorry hallelujah okay great product has about five percent of glycolic acid which is a little bit of a lower concentration of glycolic acid but if you're going to be using this on a regular basis you don't really want to use high concentrations if you want to go for those higher concentrations glycolic acids the ordinaries peeling solution wonderful product that has a bunch of other acids in it but it also has glycolic acid and also polish choice 25 aha and 2 bha is an amazing exfoliant that has glycolic acid in it i love those products next up is dry skin so for dry skin i actually have combination skin but i use dry skin products so i really like lactic acid why do i love lactic acid because lactic acid also is a wonderful moisturizer so it moisturizes and exfoliates at the same time how can you beat that if you have dry skin right so lactic acid some of my favorite products for lactic acid are going to be the ordinary's 10 percent lactic acid that also has hyaluronic acid in it it's a great product they even have a 5 if you're just starting out and it's really really inexpensive so it's a great starter for a lot of people and there's another one that i like it's the one that i personally use it does have an essential oil in it so just be aware of that it's technically fragrance free but it does have an essential oil the biosons lactic acid overnight treatment phenomenal i absolutely love it i actually love biosounds a lot i i don't really probably talk about it enough but every product i've tried from bioscience i've liked so far i don't know i just it's free promo right there for biosounds but i really like their stuff all right next up is sensitive skin and we can actually stay within the alpha hydroxy acid family for starters on this one and that would be the mandelic acid so mandelic acid is one of the largest molecule alpha hydroxy acids so it doesn't penetrate as deeply into the skin so that's why it's going to be great for sensitive skin and one of the best products for this another one really inexpensive the ordinary actually makes a great list of acid products especially when you're looking for single ingredient acids so they have a 10 mandelic acid that's just a great product overall it will actually list all these products below in addition to some other ones that we really like we just want to make this a bunch of product recommendations in one video but we'll list them below and you can kind of browse those as you uh finish the video and also as we talk about sensitive skin we can branch out into that subfamily or other family the polyhydroxy acids so polyhydroxy acids sort of newer sub-sister daughter brother cousin cousin of alpha hydroxy acids um doesn't penetrate as deep it's great for sensitive skin it's even great for rosacea prone skin for people that get really irritated by things so poly hydroxy acids are great and we'll link some of our favorite products below for this so if you have oily or acne prone skin the best ingredient for this is going to be salicylic acid so salicylic acid not a baby hydroxy acid but gets deep into those pores is lipophilic it's able to remove oil and also get rid of a lot of the causes of acne including inflammation and bacteria and declog a lot of those pores so definitely the top ingredient for acne here and and one of the best ingredients you can use in your skincare routine um and one of our favorite products for this is the paula's choice two percent bha exfoliant just great overall great great overall tolerated well by a lot of people and if you're introducing into your routine you don't have to use it as a mask all night you can actually leave it on for like 10 20 minutes and wash it off especially if you have sensitive skin but it's going to have benefits for acne it's going to exfoliate the skin it's also going to improve hyperpigmentation in dark spots so it's just really overall a great product that i personally use occasionally so now that we've kind of separated them all out you've picked your exfoliant that you're going to use when do you need to start one and this is going back to why are you using it in the first place so depending on what's going on in your life and on your skin that that's going to be when you start it so you know we've kind of mapped out why these acids work the way that they do so if you're starting to develop fine lines and wrinkles you may want to introduce your acid to improve that collagen production if you have acne you may want to introduce salicylic acid if you have hyperpigmentation you may want to increase that cell turnover and exfoliate the top layer of the skin and get rid of that hyperpigmentation yeah and then if you're talking about collagen growth and just aging altogether i mean you can really pick from your alpha hydroxy acids just according to what you tolerate you can really use this at any age and it's really just going to depend on what your goals and what you're trying to target so this is the million dollar question how often are you supposed to exfoliate right because a lot of the packaging will tell you exfoliate twice a day especially on the bottles truth is you probably don't need to exfoliate twice a day because our skin cells take about 28 days to go from the bottom layer of the skin to the top layer of the skin and so you don't really need to constantly break those bonds down because it takes long for those skin cells to get up to the top layers so truthfully i say that you usually start at about once a week with your exfoliant and that may be all that you need now if you have more resilient skin and you have some goals that you're trying to target then twice a week but the exception here is with acne because with acne because of salicylic acids additional benefits you may want to use a salicylic exfoliant every day and that's kind of the thing about this too is you may be exfoliating without even realizing it so if you're using an sa cleanser or if you're using any other cleanser with exfoliating properties like glycolic acid cleansers or some of you may still be using a physical scrub i mean you're already doing this every day just by the virtue of washing your face so for me with my goals being anti-aging and improving the skin texture in my skin i use a retinoid about five or six nights a week and on the night that i'm not using a retinoid i use an exfoliant lactic acid and so that's really all that i need to keep my texture looking the way that it does and sometimes i use a more powerful exfoliant like the paula's choice one or the ordinary's one we just kind of have to balance it out you don't want to overdo it because these can really disrupt that skin barrier which we said earlier is so important to protecting your skin from external factors and so with all things cautions what do we have to be worried about over irritation is really going to be the end point that you're going to be looking out for yourself a lot of things and this included highly individualized and so if you're getting too much irritation if you're getting too much redness flakiness if you're feeling the burn with these you're actually not supposed to this should be like a gentle mild experience or a non-existent experience with results right so when you're using your at-home skin care it shouldn't hurt maybe a little bit of tingling can be okay with certain products but it should not be burning is not a good sign and seeing a lot of redness inflammation does not mean that your skin care products are working as a matter of fact glycolic acid can do all of its benefits without showing any physical signs that it's working so basically at the end of the day you don't need to cause a lot of irritation so listen to your skin so your skin is telling you things it's getting red it starts to flake it starts to peel off it starts to hurt your other skincare products start to burn when you apply them maybe you've overdone it and you want to kind of scale back a little bit decrease your exfoliants and just kind of use gentle moisturizers so i think the biggest mistake people make is over using them or using too harsh ingredients on their skin and then there are some unique caveats by type so the alpha hydroxy acids make you more photosensitive they actually lower the amount of sunlight you need for you to get a burn but that's not the case with the beta hydroxy acid salicylic acid and it's also not the case with polyhydroxy acids those do not make you more photosensitive right but as we always say the most important thing you can do for your skin if you want to put us out of business is wear a sunscreen so uh definitely always wear sunscreen regardless but alpha hydroxy acids will definitely increase your sun sensitivity does that mean that you can't use an alpha hydroxy acid during the day no because it's actually making your sun sensitive regardless of the time of the day that you're using it you can actually use it during the day as long as you use sunscreen over it i prefer to use exfoliants at night just because how my skincare routine works out but either way no matter what time of the day you use it alpha hydroxy acids are going to make you more sensitive to the sun so that's it exfoliation 101 now we're ready to go this is one of the things that took me the longest time to figure out how do you use these in your skincare routine you cleanse you apply your exfoliant sometimes you wash it off after 10 or 15 minutes and sometimes you leave it on all night and then you can just moisturize over the top of it and that really should be all that you're using at a time you don't want to do too many different ingredients at the same time so that's it you're ready to go let us know how it works out for you guys um and we'll definitely leave some product recommendations below so thank you guys all so much for your support yeah we appreciate you all so much thanks for having a lot of fun with us through this journey yeah and if you guys see us laughing for no reason in the middle of like the video it's something hilarious happened that we had to clip out of the video so you guys just will see cuts of him giggling out of nowhere that's because something hilarious probably happened and then we just cut it out of the video to save your time but anyways sometimes we have bloopers so look out for those anyway tune in every week new videos thank you guys so much that was so long-winded guys i hope you hung with us but the uh i thought that was pretty good soliloquy it was one heck of a soliloquy it was like a little queen throughout her mind so uh what else what was i saying it's like actually in all the literature like these actually very specifically helps out i know but who's even sallow what are you talking about i'm sallow no that's like milk it's sallow no milk it's sour i'm yellowish i get salad and when milk gets sour it gets sallow in color am i wrong i don't know i don't drink milk i wasn't raised on that stuff yeah because you were raised on essential oils i don't even know how to say the name of it it's like cow yahoo like

Channel: Doctorly

Views: 600,292

Rating: 4.9720721 out of 5

Keywords: dermatologist, dermdoctor, doctorly, muneeb shah, skincare, skin care, exfoliate, exfoliation, how to exfoliate, chemical exfoliant, st. ives, biossance, paula's choice, BHA liquid exfoliant, glycolic acid, lactic acid, salicylic acid, glass skin

Id: YJxARaLMSpc

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021